• Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Never heard anyone use megameters either.

    I’ve used it in one specific situation - Physics classes in my freshman Chemistry uni year. The same professor would also use megagrams for weight.

    It was mostly so the students got a bit more comfortable converting units back and forth, specially past the 10³~10⁻³ range.

    • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Weird, I’ve never used anything other than unit*10^n on physics. it’s just simpler to operate. 1e3m is 1km, 1e6g a megagram. When working on science, I much prefer the scientific notation.

      • Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        It looks a bit less cluttered, compare e.g. “40.0 Mm” “40.0 x 10⁶ m” or “4.00 x 10⁷ m”. Plus I think that he took into account that he wasn’t lecturing future physicists but future chemists - in Chemistry you rely on those prefixes all the time, and for most stuff you won’t be changing the order of magnitude too much. (Major exception, pK-whatever)

      • rbhfd@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Megaparsec, kilojoules, kilo electron volt,… are all very common.

        Then on the other hand, giga solar masses is never used.